Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1887-03-17
COOP SHORTHAND WRITERS.

IF young man wanted to be always
sure Of position" said business man
ager in Boston lately, II would have him
learn to write shorthand, learn the type
writer, and add bookkeeping, so that he
could keep the accounts at pinch. Then
no matte how hard the times were, he
would be sure to work. If he got out of
place I'd agree to take care of him till
he found another, every time"
Now don't rush off for 'Pitman' or join
shorthand class till you know what you
are about, for good deal more goes to
making a stenographer than knowledge
of how TO write shorthand. In the first
place to be good shorthand writer land
second rate one Is not worth the room
he take) requires the tirmest soundest
nerve. No business that can be named
takes so much out of one as short hand
reporting, Hearing, eyesight, hand and
brain are called upon for their highest
work and the most intense attention.
Sandy haired boys of sBnguine tempera-
ment or pale Tipped dark ones should
choose outdoor work and let reporting in
every case alone, except for amusement.
Hundreds of such young men are
carried TO their graves every year from
the offices and newspapers of the city
who might be hale, g-liyed men had
not they mistaken their vocation Lean,
wiry men and women are best for desk
work and stand the drain of indoor life
with less loss, The young men and wom-
en- who have sort OF desire for easy posi-
tions should let short hand writing
alone.
The shorthand writer like the typical
newspaper man, wants TO have the widest
intelligence possible--to know something
about everything, at least enough to know
what is talked about. For not only mer-
chants and lawyers, but physicians, edit
ors and literary men, to say nothing of
physicians, are coming to find the servi-
ces of shorthand writer of great use in
their profession. And to be of use, he
must be a man who takes things at word
who knows a geographical name or a
charter in history or LECTION when he
hears it, without stopping to ask what
that word was and botAering to have it
spelled-a process which goes far to drive
the principal debating ont of his senses.
The secretary needs such keen and close
attention as TO catch the direction and
the exact words without having to utter
that irritating "WhatY every ten minutes
or oftener, breaking the tread of thought
and wasting time His express bust
ness Is to make the most of 1t for an over
weighted principal whose moments are
precious. Then, as CORES ponding clerk
or secretary he must have the forms of
good business address at command, so
that he can put curt directions into cou-te-
Gus and well-turned phrase. An order
worth thousands may be lost the house !
by too stiff a tone, the offensive indepen-
dence of a phrase, or one which has
something over polite and solicitors
about it..
Il want n man, said a Boston merchant
asking for a stenographer, "who can take |
my idea in three words and put into |
shape in letter, neatly written, spaced |
ana directed. If | can get such man
he's sure of a good place as long as I'm |
gOing,n But the clever head of refer |
ence Office he applied to could only shake
his head and say, IF we had twenty such |
men they would all find places tomorrow |
and as many the day after"
A keen business man of wide experience |
in many kinds of work says: "The |
trouble with three fOurths of the young
men and girls who learn shorthand and |
typewritng is they don't know anything. |
They expect to get along by knowing |
their one branch and nothing else, and II
is no use. You get clever girl at atype |
writer-one who can rattle off eighty |
words of n Declaration of Independence a
minute, or LOngfellyw's Psalm of Life or
anything she knows by heart-and set
her down to write a business letter from
dictation, and she has to stop and turn
her machine up every three lines to see
if she has spelled word right. 1t puts
one out, and makes the mail late. Or
she let's it go with a blunder that would
disgrace an infant scholar, and there
isn't time to write it over. Sometimes
the whole batch of morning has TO be
done over. If | happen TO shy Buenos
Avery she is dumbfouuded, don't know
what heather I'm naming, and | must
write it out before she knows what is
meant and Chattahoochee would floor her
forever.
That's n business. Now if IN dictat
ing on time for my paper-not a minute
to spare, end it isn't the least matter how
it looks. and the proof reader minds the
spelling, Zen 10 one, she'll have her eraser
out ever other line to correct some fan
cied blealish, and you can't get it into
head or :er either, that all you want is to
jerked up TO the printers in fifteen sec
onds. That's what | call want of intelh
gence. And out OF 200 young men and
women we tried to fit for type writer sec
retaries, there were not five | should call
good ones, who could be trusted to write
a letter without some shabby blunder in
spelling or phrase
1t is no uncommon thing to find a
shorthand writer unable to make out his
own report, from the same cause that rem
ders type writer's copy incoherent, the
want of habit of fixed attention. In lack
of this, dots, dashes and worde go wild. /
1t is good training for either work to
learn long passages Of any author by
heart, in the exact words of the text, TAX
ing no more than one can correctly re-
member at time, repeating and re-re
peating day after day until the whole
page is photographed on the brain.
There are plenty Of people who prob
ably never made the effort of close at
tsntion 10 anything in their lives. Their
minds pick up what impressions they
will. right or wrong, and the rest is void.
They can rattle the keys Of type writer
or sor,- tnne- messages from some farnil-